Filmmakers showcase Bosnian family's story

"Neither Here Nor There" shows the hardships of a local Bosnian family's move to America.

By Kurt Heine
Sept. 17, 2008

Courtesy of Refugee Films

Unlike many local families, the Selimovics didn't move to Columbia for the public schools or the cost of living. They came here fleeing mass genocide in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica.

During one week in July 1995, 8,000 Muslim men were killed. It was the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II.

"The life I had, no one would be excited about," says Nermina Selimovic, the family's oldest daughter.

The story of that struggle moved a collective of Columbia filmmakers to set out to tell the Selimovics' story of readjustment and survival in a new country. The result, "Neither Here Nor There," a documentary five years in the making, premieres this weekend at the Missouri Theatre.

"They are classic American refugees," videographer and editor Steve Hudnell says.

Missouri is home to the second largest Bosnian population in the world, after Bosnia. There are approximately 50,000 refugees in Missouri, mostly located in St. Louis, according to the documentary's Web site.

Unfortunately, the stories of immigrants and refugees are often overlooked. "(Immigrants) are the hidden element of society," Hudnell says.

To help tell those stories, four filmmakers started Refugee Films, an independent production company that seeks to tell the stories of refugees in America.

It all started when Hudnell and fellow producer and filmmaker Beth Pike met Kerri Yost, a caseworker and English teacher at Refugee and Immigration Services in Columbia. When Yost started to express her thoughts about doing a documentary about Bosnian refugees, Hudnell and Pike were a step ahead of her.

Coincidentally, Hudnell and Pike had been filming interviews with teachers from the Bosnian battlefields and the site of the Oklahoma City bombing. At a trauma psychology workshop, they discussed their similar experiences in helping children overcome traumatic events.

"Talk about two communities coming together," Pike says about the experience.

The filmmakers decided to make a documentary about one of the families Yost had been working with, the Selimovics. The family comprises Fatima, who became a single mother when she lost her husband in the war; Nermina, the oldest daughter, who was married and in high school before she was forced to flee; Nerzela, the middle daughter determined to get a good education by graduating high school and going on to college; and Adnan, Fatima's youngest, who is just starting high school when the film begins.

"When they came over here they became - I hate to say it - America's working poor," Yost says.

Every one of Fatima's children had to go to work to support the family and to help buy even the simplest necessities that many Americans take for granted, such as cars and furniture. Nermina worked nights at MBS Textbooks, which works with Refugee and Immigration Services, a charity that helps newcomers settle in their adopted homes, to find jobs for the displaced. Most of the jobs that refugees can get are minimum wage and behind the scenes, such as cleaning the floors of a hotel room or washing dishes. Yost mentioned that many of the cases she has worked with refer to their new lives as the "second war."

One of the major challenges the film crew faced was gaining the trust of the Selimovics. Yost understood from her close contact with Bosnians that the media played a huge role in disseminating propaganda during the genocide, cheerleading the death of thousands.

"Trust and access, you have to build that," filmmaker Elizabeth Federici says, adding that the gradual building of the relationship with the Selimovics came from "a collection of small moments."

Even with the Selimovics on board, the filmmaking process still took a total of five years, which allowed their story to progress and change, a positive side effect of the independent filmmaking process.

"It was a little different for all of us," Hudnell says. "Sometimes and in some ways, we didn't know where the hell this was going."

With all of the primary creative minds in the project locked down in day jobs, they had to rely on their collective free time to get things done. Money had to be raised in the form of grants from the Missouri Council of the Arts and many others. Editing duties were divided among the group. There was no one person doing one thing completely. Instead, there was a system of checks and balances. Federici says she is amazed the team is still friends.

Along with the premiere of the film, attendees of Saturday night's event will be treated to Bosnian desserts and a pre-screening acoustic set by local Bosnian artist Armin Karabegovich, whose music is featured in the film. Other artists who will be in attendance include the South Side Bosnians and the 180 Boys, who are both part of the St. Louis Bosnian community. They will perform on the patio following the screening and a Q&A session with the filmmakers. Tickets are $12, and sales go to benefit the Refugee and Immigration Services.

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